Red Bank Green

Serving Red Bank and Greater Red Bank, NJ

Anthony Campitello, with daughters Cristina, left, and Angie, has opened Alfonso’s Pastry Shop in the Broad Street space that was formerly home to Carlo’s Bake Shop. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

A Staten Island-based pastry shop plans to set up shop in the former Carlo’s Bake Shop at 86 Broad Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

One pastry shop replaces another; work to transform a century-old firehouse into an interior design shop gets underway; a boutique closes; and a gourmet lunch spot in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park pulls down the shutters for the winter.

With temperatures pushing 90, Carlo’s Bake Shop owner Buddy Valastro kept cool at the Red Bank Marina Thursday prior to taping an episode of his TV show, ‘Cake Boss.’ He’s seen at right with marina owner Steve Remaley and Remaley’s 11-year-old son, Christopher, who took Valastro and a film crew crabbing in the Swimming River.

Spoiler alerts: the show involves a cake in the shape of a crab, and temperatures Friday and Saturday are expected to be only slightly cooler, peaking in the mid-80s. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

Above: Standup guy Kyle Grooms is among the headliners taking part in Saturday’s annual Laugh Out Loud Comedy Show fundraiser for 180 Turning Lives Around. Below, it’s a triple-header of Jim Gaffigan shows at the Count Basie.

A quadruple-whammy forecast of snow, ice, epic low temps and, uh, snow can put a klondike kibosh on the best-laid plans for the holiday-hangover weekend. But those willing to boldly go beyond home and hearth will find some entertaining people who aim to make it worth the trip or slip. All served up with a smile and a laugh — and all, we feel compelled to add, subject to schedule changes.

Friday, January 3:

RED BANK: The chilly autumn landscapes of Nebraska and other Plains locales might appear downright tropical when you’re coming into Red Bank Bow Tie Cinemas from the Navesink riverside cold. But if you’re looking to defrost your extremities by the glow of a heartwarming father-son bonding scenario, you’ll need to do the hard miles with Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama road trip, through the kind of quirky relationship dynamics that the writer-director mastered in Sideways and The Descendants. 1960s Hollywood rebel Bruce Dern has his best role in decades as a drinky, distant deadfish of a dad who’s convinced that a direct-mail sweepstakes prize awaits him in Lincoln, NE — and he’s fortified by a strong cast that includes Will (SNL) Forte, Bob (Breaking Bad) Odenkirk and fellow codger contrarian Stacy Keach. At times broadly silly and bracingly sad, Nebraska nurtures a warm ember of humanity at its heart — and it’s playing on White Street with Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ seriocomic sojourn of an ambitious folkie adrift in the crashpads and coffeehouses of Camelot-era America. Take it here for showtimes throughout the weekend.